


Reboot [ABANDONED]

by a_sparrows_fall



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Extremis, M/M, Magical weather, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:44:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6821551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sparrows_fall/pseuds/a_sparrows_fall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NOTE: As of April 2018 I'm marking this work officially abandoned. Thanks for reading what's there.</p><hr/><p>For the prompt: “Tony's giving Steve a ride to or from a situation - Sudden lightning storm zaps 'em and down they go... you take it from there (happy ending preferred).”</p><p>After an incident on Avengers duty, Steve acquires some new powers. Tony has some reactions.</p><p>Or, as the Poet once said:</p><p>  <i>I’ve got some news for you: Steve-bots have feelings, too.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. self.init()

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Random_Nexus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_Nexus/gifts).



Robots.

Steve, Nat, Clint and Vision are fighting robots.

Again.

At least it’s on purpose this time. In the training facility.

It’s deja-vu inducing, to be sure, with Ultron behind them. But honestly? There’s no one else to fight. No Avengers-level threats, anyway. The team is restless, and Steve’s doing everything he can to keep their skills sharp.

 _The second you come up with a snappy rallying cry,_ Steve has ruefully thought more than once, _everything falls apart_.

He found the bots packed away on a subterranean storage floor; Steve’s fairly certain they were going to be members of the Iron Legion one day, but had their external networking capabilities removed after, well, _everything_. They were just uselessly sitting there, collecting so much dust.

So, they’re fighting robots.

Nat lets out a huff, and Clint rolls his eyes, but Steve is determined not to let another training day go to waste.

He won’t admit to this out loud—not after Sokovia, that would be cruel—but he still remembers seeing the Synthetic Man back at the World Exposition of Tomorrow back in ‘43 and being awed by it. Robots held so much promise; they’d be the perfect soldiers for a number of missions. Steve winces; he imagines that’s how Tony got the idea for the Legion, for Ultron, in the first place. It’s hard not to see how helpful they could be.

Maybe next time Tony could just… program the bots to read their Asimov a little better?

Clint preps his arrows as the shiny automatons power up; he’s got a few new anti-electricity tips; Steve hopes this will actually be somewhat therapeutic for him.

“What’ve you got going on this weekend Steve?” he asks, expanding his bow in the space of a breath. “Barring apocalypse, natch.”

Somehow, even as Steve’s readying his shield, gauging the best battle plan implementation, executing hand signals to the two assassins flanking him, he notices Nat’s eyes light up.

“Something... _seasonal_?” she offers, quirking an eyebrow, all but flat-out asking if Steve has any new leads on a certain metal-limbed sniper.

Steve shakes his head. “Not so much.” That trail is cold, for now.

“Don’t you draw, Steve?” Clint asks offhandedly, nocking an arrow as the bots spring to life.

The team swings into motion. Steve, for his part, is trying to focus on his shield work: more precise, efficient striking. “Sometimes. I was… I was thinking of taking it digital.”

Clint releases an arrow, and a black goop pours from the tip on impact, gumming up one of the robot’s joints, rendering it useless. He’s chewing over Steve’s words. “I gotta admit, Cap, that doesn’t sound like you.”

Steve manages not to grouse— because, yes, sure, he’s from a few (seven counts as a few, right?) decades back. But really, when you think about it, hasn’t he been as high-tech as it gets his whole life? The SSR had projects that the general public wouldn’t see until almost 20 years later. If he was ahead of the curve in the forties, and slightly behind it now, doesn’t it kind of cancel out? At least enough for people to stop giving him guff about it?

“Yeah, well, you lose four sketchbooks in a row on combat missions, you start to think storage in the cloud sounds like a pretty _keen_ idea,” he punches emphasis on the old timey slang for effect, while also punching a bot in its aluminum sternum.

“So what’s stopping you?” 

“I just don’t know where to get started with the hardware.”

“You should call Stark.” Nat advises coolly after a perfect execution of her signature flying leg triangle takedown.

 _The Farm_ , Steve thinks. _He is not going to think about The Farm, he is not—_ “Tony? No, he’s got to be way too busy to—”

“Nat—” says Clint, and it sounds like a warning, which is odd; Natasha is handling the bots better than Steve’s ever seen her, which is saying something.

“Trust me,” Natasha ignores Clint entirely, answering through gritted teeth, applying an armbar to one of the metal figures until its arm actually flies off, “I bet he could use the company—”

“What d’you mean?” Steve asks.

Nat’s voice is quizzical, maybe overly so. “Oh, you didn’t hear?”

“ _Nat_ —” Clint says again, more forcefully.

“Pepper and Tony had… words after the Ultron mess.”

Steve’s shocked for a moment. Tony and Pepper seemed so happy together. Ultron? _Ultron_ broke them up? It just seems so unimportant, compared to what they had together—

It takes a bot nearly grappling Steve from behind to snap him back into action, and realize that floating cities overrun with assassin droids only seem trivial from one superhero to another. And Steve had only met Pepper once or twice, but it was pretty clear she had never been a fan of that life. Tony had very briefly opened up about the Clean Slate Protocol, right after SHIELD fell, an admission of his own wounds, a show of solidarity. He was coy in describing it at the time, but Steve thought he got a sense that it was a promise of sorts. A manifesto, a plan. For Pepper, for himself.

When he came back to active Avengers duty for the von Strucker mission less than six months later, Steve assumed he must have misinterpreted what Tony was trying to tell him before.

Maybe he’d gotten it right, though.

Being an Avenger again, even briefly, must have been a bit of a betrayal for Pepper. And of course, the whole thing was complicated by Pepper’s position as CEO; Tony’s personal decisions had a direct effect on the company’s standing, which had to put a whole other level of strain on the relationship.

“And he replaced Jarvis,” Nat continues, “Because of Vision, I guess; he won’t really talk about it—I know Jarvis was just an AI—no offense Vizh —”

The Vision phases in from nowhere, and Steve must have really been distracted by the breakup news; he had almost entirely forgotten about him. “That is factually accurate; none taken.”

“—but I think he knew the guy longer than anyone. Rhodes is busy with work, and _we’re_ his after-school gig. Tony’s got… no one right now.”

“Do you still talk to Tony, Vision?”

“I have reached out, Captain, but not received a response. I think you might say… the wound is still too fresh.”

“Trust me, Steve, I bet he’d like nothing better than to help you with your... hardware.”

“Laying it on thick—” grunts Clint.

Nat rolls her eyes good-naturedly.

“Shouldn’t someone besides you get to be happy, Ranchhand Clint?”

 _What does that mean?_ Steve thinks. They don’t know about… anything that might have happened between him and Tony, do they?

“Heal thyself, _Doc_ ,” Clint grumps to Nat.

And Steve’s head snaps up at that, forgetting how exposed his own crush might be for a moment, because everyone knows talking about All Things Green is off-limits. Clint must really hate this training exercise, because that is a _suicidal_ move.

Fotunately for Clint, the Vision appears from nowhere, stealing focus by phasing his fists into the chests of the last two robots, then resolidifying. He flexes his hands with the power of tiny bombs, causing the bots to burst apart dramatically.

“I don’t believe Agent Romanov is in need of medical assistance,” he supplies thoughtfully. 

“Yeah, well,” Nat kicks some of the bot carcasses aside as she cuts a path through them toward Steve, casting a glance at Clint over her shoulder. “ _Somebody_ might be.”

Clint swallows audibly.

Nat puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Call Tony. He can help with the tablet thing. And besides,” she nods to the wreckage formerly known as the Iron Legion, “You can tell him we’re _bored_.”

* * *

It’s quiet in the Tower.

And why shouldn’t it be? Quiet is nice. Tony likes quiet. Loves it. Silence is golden, y’know?

And space! The final-frontier! Which is to say: it’s empty up here. Just him and the bots, like right after MIT. It’s good. It’s great. There’s no one to give him shit about anything. Like what posters cannot be considered art, and how long to hide out in his workshop, and how loud to play his music, which are completely legitimate adult reasons to be happy, not typical of a twelve-year-old at all, and _hey_ , why isn’t he playing music?

When a song immediately bursts through the workshop speakers, Tony jumps enough to rattle every tool at his workstation, and okay, Friday really shouldn’t be approaching mind-reading levels of obedience, her approaching the singularity should be at least a few years off—

He calms momentarily when he realizes it’s not Friday responding to commands he hadn’t spoken aloud. The song playing is a purposely goofy, tinny-sounding midi version of “Party In The USA.” Which is just the audio notification signal (okay, fine: _ringtone_ , he still uses ringtones in 2015, shut up) he set up for one Steven Grant Rogers playing over the room’s A/V system.

And then he descends into an entirely different kind of panic.

Tony immediately has some star-strangled thoughts about _The Farm_ _oh GOD, he’s not going bring up the The Farm, is he? Fuck fuck fuck—_

“Boss?” Friday checks in with him after an abnormally long silence.

He takes a deep breath; _postpone that particular flop sweat and answer the phone like a person, Stark._

Tony gestures at some glowing rectangles on the display hovering before him, and a tiny beep tells him he’s live on the call.

“Captain Handsome!” he crows like _nothing-is-wrong-of-course-it-isn’t-why-would-it-be_? “What can I do ya for today?”

“Hey, Tony,” Steve says, and his voice is soft, slightly sheepish. No admonishment for the nickname, either. Not Earth’s Mightiest Heroes stuff, then. Which is fine. Tony already chucked his Avengers decoder ring, Ovaltine be damned. He totally doesn’t need to save the world or rescue puppies or, more importantly, blow stuff up just to blow off some steam. No matter how good it sounds.

Steve clears his throat. “I was just wondering if you could help me, uh. Get started with… that is, find a good model, of, uh…”

This is the guy who tossed out battle plans for defeating an invading alien army without a second thought?

 _Maybe he’s thinking about The Farm_ , Tony’s brain unhelpfully supplies, and _nope nope nope nope nope_. In an effort to completely avoid that subject forever, Tony doesn’t even pick at Steve’s rambling, just lets him stutter on, kind of like that guy in Swingers leaving the voicemail in that one scene.

“...a drawing tablet, so I could… well, I was thinking I might like to store my, uh… sketches. Digitally?” Steve finishes somewhat disjointedly, in an unintentional-but-not-half-bad impression of Christopher Walken.

Oh. He’s nervous. Because, technology?

“You… want help with a tablet?” Tony parrots back, because he wants to make sure he caught that right.

It’s a small thing, but the StarkPhone Steve’s calling Tony on has four upgraded mics and new binaural processing algorithms, so Tony clearly hears the tiny sigh on the other end of the line; Steve might as well have shouted I’M NOT AN OLD FUDDY-DUDDY at him.

Tony could go in for the kill, he’s got jibes at the ready—‘American as Raspberry Pi’ _,_ does that work?—he certainly would have let them fly a few years ago when he first met Rogers.

But Steve sounds tired, like he’s probably already asked everyone else in upstate New York first and gotten similar snark, Man Out Of Time quickly becoming Man Out Of Patience.

Besides, Tony hasn’t heard from Steve in a while, and yeah, okay, he’s grinning now, his face unused to the feeling recently. He’d cheekily informed Steve that he’d miss Tony—and Steve had the audacity to agree with him, _sincerely_ even!

And it doesn’t take the entirety of Tony’s rather considerable grey matter to realize that that street goes both ways. In Tony’s direction, for several miles. Marathon distance, even. He’s maybe kinda sorta _definitely_ missed Steve, too.

Tony holds his tongue.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” the soldier soldiers on, sounding embarrassed, “I should’ve just gone to the StarkStore—”

“No, no, Steve, it’s no trouble. It’s you, so it’s the literal opposite of trouble. I haven’t used anything but a gestural interface in a while, but we’ve got some amazing concept artists on staff, I’ll double check with them, get the latest specs on what’s good, and get a care package sent out today—hey, I’ll have Cecil fly it out to you—”

“Cecil?”

“Yeah, one of my new experimental autonomous drone prototypes. Made a pair of ‘em. DUM-E and U have some new sibs; I don’t know whether to call the other one ‘Beany’ or ‘Carlos’—”

“You’re… you’re building bots again?” Steve asks cautiously.

Shit. He’s busted, isn’t he?

To be fair, Tony hadn’t even thought of it like that, like it was dangerous, though it’s pretty reasonable for Steve to see it that way: he and Pepper broke up, he’s back in the lab, unhinged and without Bruce’s stabilizing influence. Coming to a theatre near you, it’s Murderbots: The Sequel!

But for Tony, it’s the tactile equivalent of comfort food.

When he was 7 years old and there was shouting coming from downstairs, followed by the sound of one of Howard’s rocks glasses hitting the wall and Maria’s sobbing, Tony built bots.

When he was 15 and a sophomore at MIT, voice just barely beyond cracking, while everyone else’s hormones were on overdrive and all they wanted to do was drink and fuck (and make Tony’s life a living hell, apparently), Tony built bots.

When he was 21, trying to play the role of returning prince of the empire, all the while unmoored and unsteady, doing his best to convince himself all _he_ wanted to do was drink and fuck, and making a decent job of it… In the quiet moments in between, he built, well, _JARVIS_.

And now, when—fuck, it’s hard to even think it—when he’s lost his AI, who happened to be one of his closest friends, and his—his _Pepper_ ; she’s a category of her own—within the span of a few months, not to mention quit being an Avenger, _twice_ —of course he’s fallen back into it.

 _Like riding a bike_ doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s half-involuntary; it’s like breathing.

Nonetheless, when the last robot you built went rogue and had a hand in the destruction of multiple major metropolitan areas, he can maybe get why Steve sounds concerned.

Tony’s hand scrubs the back of his neck, and he’s actually glad this isn’t a video call for once. “Yeah, you got me. They’re just little—”

“—That’s great. I’d love to meet ‘em.” Steve says softly, and sounds like he means it.

Oh, huh. Really? This day is full of surprises.

“Keep your eyes on the skies in a few hours, one of ‘em will be there, tablet in hand. Er, claw, really.”

“Well, thanks, Tony—” Steve says, and the casual observer might think he sounds satisfied enough, but Tony’s pretty sure there’s something else there. He’d better extend an invite; it’s for Steve’s sake, really, Tony’s not lonely at all—

“Actually, you wanna come by the Tower? Pick it up? I can send a quinjet your way. Though as I recall, some philanthropist left a couple in your garage as well, the beautiful bastard. Come visit me, we’ll get some lunch, and I’ll hook you up with your dream tablet.”

“That’d be nice. I’d like that. I’ll—”

There’s a faint noise in the background and Steve pauses, sounding distracted.

“Can you take a rain check? I just got an Avengers priority alert.”

Friday pipes up over the call before Tony can respond.

“Maria Hill for you, Boss; she’s sending some information over right now.”

A map of Europe with red patterns overlaid, starting in Sokovia and spreading to the rest of the region, appears on the nearest display, along with a report on lost Ultron tech.

They’re calling him in? And Cap, too? That’s… unexpected.

“Well, what do you know, Cap, they’re playing our song.”

Steve pauses. “Are you saying you’ve—”

Tony gestures, a throwing motion with both hands, and the data display expands around the room, mission parameters (yep, there’s Steve’s name, too), videos and images arranged around him for his perusal.

In a lower corner, in a red bold font: **ESTIMATED LAUNCH TIME: 16:00,** paired with today’s date.

“How do you feel about reunion tours?”

* * *

The Sokovian government—aided by Stark Industries and various official (and, ahem, unofficial) United States agencies—did its best to corral the leftover Ultron tech in the wake of that disaster, but leaks were going to be inevitable. Steve remembers the debriefing clearly: Tony hadn’t really been worried about the now-destroyed Ultron-bots; Ultron had essentially been the hive mind controlling them all. There was no strong AI onboard the individual units for anyone to scavenge.

Even a base Ultron model wouldn’t be too terribly useful, Tony had said, without the something similar to the gem from Loki’s sceptre, the original catalyst that made Ultron possible—humans wouldn’t be able to replicate that technology for some time. So, yes, keep an eye on the remaining tech debris from the disaster, of course, but it shouldn’t be a problem. To galvanize another threat of that level, it would take something powerful, something otherworldly...

Something Asgardian would do.

“It’s called Draupnir; it’s a ring that belonged to Odin,” Hill explains via video conference, a talking head on the projection display against the left side of the quinjet’s cargo hold. “Before you panic, I’m told it’s not nearly as powerful as the Tesseract or Loki’s sceptre. But it _was_ forged by Dwarves, apparently, which, according to our Asgardian contacts, are the ‘greatest builders in the nine realms’—”

Tony huffs out a disdainful noise at that presumptive title, and Steve tries not to smile.

“What’s so important about this particular bling? Gives the wearer, what? Mind control, eternal life, the ability to talk like Andy Serkis —”

“It makes copies of itself, or least, that was its original purpose— it can break down into smaller components and reform itself into other shapes: expand, construct, adapt to the situation—”

Tony’s eyes light up at that.

“Sounds like nanotech to me,” he says, suddenly rapt.

“It’s entirely possible—it’s been gone since before Thor’s birth, so: a really extremely long time, and our intel is shoddy at best, but we think there’s a technical component to it, hence needing your expertise, Stark.”

“I missed you, too, Prickly Muffin—”

Hill manages to keep right on moving through her info dump without her eyes rolling out of her head, which Steve finds highly impressive. “There’s an exiled Asgardian we’ve had our eye on in Eastern Europe, who probably had Draupnir in his possession for the last millennium or so—”

 _What?_ S.H.I.E.L.D—or the New Avengers, or whoever the hell Steve worked for these days—knew about this person and just… left them to their own devices? _The more things change…_ Steve shakes his head.

“We actually think this guy was—and still is—an ally, but the artifact was taken from him without his knowledge.”

“Let me guess,” Steve theorizes, “Right in the same area we started tracing black market Ultron parts to.”

Hill nods gravely. “Bingo.”

Tony’s face contorts in something like suspicion. “I don’t get it: I’m going on this Ren Faire adventure ‘cause you think I can help with the toys— which I appreciate—but where’s our be-caped and hammered blondie bear? No offense, Cap, just asking about Thor’s domain knowledge, not his biceps—”

“ _Tony—_ ” 

“If you can believe it,” Hill’s eyes dart around on the screen— is she nervous? “Thor’s told us he’s investigating something possibly even _worse._ ”

“Well, that doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy. So, you think Ultron scraps plus Ring of Power equals bad news Midgard?”

“That’s about the size of it. Remember, this is recon only: we don’t know who the buyer was in the Ultron transactions, and the Asgardian tech will be hard to wrangle. We don’t expect them to have gotten far with it. We just want some more detailed sweeps of the area than our satellites and drones can provide.”

“Thanks, Maria,” Steve nods, and her image blinks out, replaced on the screen by detailed mission information.

Tony paces behind him before giving him a delighted look. “So this is like old times, huh?”

Steve, perhaps unbeknownst to most, can give as good as get, so he’s prepared with a quip about how ‘old times’ isn’t really a phrase you should use to reference a few summers ago when you’re hanging out with a guy born in 1918.

But Tony’s smiling at him, so he keeps it to himself.

“You, me, in the back of a plane, dealing with some ridiculous Norse crap,” Tony carries on, “We’re on our way to…” Tony gestures at the display, zooming in on the map for confirmation, “...a forest in Latveria, instead of coming back from Stuttgart, but you know. Similar. I think the traditional third anniversary gift is, uh, leather, but something tells me you’re not ready to go there, and alien tech is a suitable alternative.”

“Loki was a helluva third wheel,” Steve says, indicating the cargo hold, blissfully empty of Asgardian gods for the moment (and deftly avoiding that leather comment altogether.) “So I think this is an improvement. Hey, speaking of company, who’s up front?” He’d been so focused on Hill’s mission prep transmission, he hadn’t even thought about who might be piloting the jet. He jerks a thumb to the cockpit.

“Friday,” Tony says unconcerned.

“Who— wait, your AI?”

“You thought I was going to let Elon have all the self-driving software fun?”

Before Steve can protest, Friday chimes in.

“Sir, Captain: we’re five minutes out from our destination. There’s some inclement weather, but nothing of concern.”

“Thanks, French Fri,” Tony shoots Steve a grin. “Hey, a storm! Completes the deja vu experience!”

He pulls his armor briefcase out of its storage compartment, along with Steve’s helmet and hands it to him. “Oh, stop that brow-a-crinklin’, Steven. C’mon, it’s a flyover. I’ll pop out, give everything a quick scan, and then we’ll head back— in and out, no muss, no fuss—”

“What if we need backup?”

“This was just going to be me, Steve— you _are_ my backup. I only took the jet because I didn’t think you’d appreciate me carrying you bridal-style in the suit for two and a half hours—feel _extremely_ free to correct me if I’m wrong—”

Steve shakes his head, mutters “star wars” under his breath as he applies his helmet.

“What?” Tony asks.

“ _‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this’_?” Steve offers while clipping the chinstrap, trying to feel out Tony’s reaction. Is he hiding something? “This feels off. If it’s not important, an observation-only one-man mission, why send an Avenger at all?”

“They didn’t— I’m not an Avenger anymore—”

“Stark, you fund this whole operation! You’re our main backer since SHIELD went off the map. You can do whatever you want!”

Tony’s face hardens, closes down. “Right, I just buy my way into things, I’m of no use at—” His eyebrows rocket up his forehead in realization. “You think _I_ set this up? That _I_ had something to do with this little tête-à-tête?”

 _And here we go again_ , thinks Steve. Of course this was going to happen. Absence makes the heart grow more deluded, apparently. Did he just fantasize a version of Tony Stark that didn’t hate him? That wanted to spend time with him? That could give him an honest answer about literally anything?

 _Just tell me, Tony,_ Steve pleads internally. _If you wanted to come back to the team, to hang out, to get me alone, to do anything at all, all you had to do was ask._

But what escapes Steve’s lips is: “It’s not the first time you’ve kept things from me—”

 _We have nothing in common_ , Steve’s inner monologue races onward, careening off the rails. _Our backgrounds, interests, how we work, how we feel_—

Tony tosses the briefcase with some force on the floor of the hold, the sound echoing around them, then stomps on the release latch. The armor pieces rise up and begin to assemble as if sentient, and god, it’s really as beautiful as it is every time Steve sees it. The intricacy and precision of the interlocking pieces, forming a fully protective shell, which Tony steps easily into, is breathtaking. The sound of the faceplate slamming down and the grim, fixed expression of the helmet snap Steve back to the moment: he’s supposed to be mad at Tony, goddammit, or at least determined to get some answers.

“Look, _Frosty_ ,” comes a slightly tinny response through the suit’s external speakers, “All I wanted to do was get you set up with your paint-by-numbers, and then we both got the call.”

Tony’s indignation is temporarily disrupted when the jet is rocked. Turbulence. Steve glances at the map display; there’s an indication of rain, but nothing else. He starts up to the cockpit to try and figure out what the issue is.

Tony paces after him, clomping all the way.

“I’m just the _checkbook_ , all right? I don’t know what Hill was thinking, I don’t review Avengers intel day-to-day and approve everything, and I _sure_ as hell don’t want back on the team, so don’t get your panties in a—”

“—cyclone,” says Steve, staring out the front windshield at the massive funnel cloud forming before them.

“Weird choice of words, but, sure—”

Steve whips back around. The suit’s body language says Tony’s gaze is entirely fixed on Steve, oblivious to what they are flying into. He points to the rapidly darkening sky in front of them.

“No, dammit, Tony, _look_.”

* * *

_What the hell is that?_

Not that your garden variety hurricane or tornado is anything to scoff at, but even at a glance, it’s pretty clear this is not a normal storm.

And they are headed right into it.

Tony shoves past Steve, planting his shiny metal ass in the pilot’s seat, glancing at the controls, comparing their readings to what’s showing on the HUD.

“Friday, where did this come from? Our radar isn’t showing—”

“I think I’ve been compromised. I don’t have any reading of the storm, other than the jet’s sensors picking up the—”

The plane rocks again, harder this time. Steve stumbles behind him, clings to the copilot’s seat for stability.

“—turbulence,” finishes Friday, voice slowing to a distorted robotic crawl before going to complete silence.

“Fine, give me manual control— Friday? You there?”

“Sorry, Boss,” Friday whispers from inside Tony’s helmet, “I pulled a subset of my functionality into the armor’s local storage before the jet went offline. No connection to the Tower— to anywhere. There's a basic auto-pilot you can fall back on, but no GPS, no tracking... you're flying solo.”

The world around them is darkening, the windshield covered in a uniform fog, the color of charcoal and seemingly as thick, as the nose of the quinjet starts to enter the cyclone. Tony takes a deep breath, grabbing the controls before swiveling his head to regard Steve. He nods for him to take a seat.

“Looks like you had the right of it, Skywalker; buckle up. Unless you want to drive?”

Steve winces as he straps in. “I think you know my track record putting down planes. You’ve got this, Tony.”

“Right, right,” Tony breathes, trying to calm himself, gripping the controls through the gauntlets as they plunge fully into the cyclone.

It’s obvious the moment they’ve been pulled fully into the funnel, as the plane is effectively tossed in what feels like several directions at once, huge jolts rocking the craft, first knocking around anything not bolted down, followed by just about anything that was.

The opacity and darkness of the storm makes it hard to tell if anything Tony is doing at the controls is having an effect at all; even zooming in using the helmet’s capabilities, it’s hard to see much of anything through the windshield. But within the winds whipping around the plane, he thinks he can make out… tiny silver specks? Is that rain? Hail?

There’s a horrifying sound of tearing metal and the plane makes a full rotation sideways, having lost some vital part of itself, maybe the tip of a wing—the life has flickered out of the damage monitoring system, so it’s difficult to say.

They can’t fly out of here.

They can’t fly out of here… in this, anyway.

Tony flips the controls back to auto pilot and then stands as he makes the decision. He looks at Steve. “Okay, new plan. You’re with me.”

“What?” Steve asks, but he’s already taking off the seat restraints. Does he actually trust—?

Never mind, there’ll be time to think about that when when they’re not dead.

Tony stalks back to the storage units in the hold, half of them knocked open, supplies in disarray. He manages to find some industrial grade bungee cable half falling out of one, and gives it to Steve; they’re both steadying themselves against the side of the aircraft so they don’t fall every time it pitches.

“I realize you’re probably not the type for bondage fun, but I need you to affix yourself to me, because I’m going to have to take us down the old-fashioned way. New-fashioned. Whatever. In the suit.”

Steve’s lips look like they’re on the point of parting, some objection at the ready. But his eyes dart to the cockpit, and he, too, knows the plane won’t even have power in a few seconds. They _might_ die out in the storm, but they _will_ die in here.

Steve nods once, tightly, and approaches Tony from behind, chest to back. Without another word, he starts winding the cable around them both in a way that Tony really hopes is some standard military thing and not just a haphazard mess like it seems.

There’s nothing to do but wait a few more seconds as Steve finishes attaching the cable and fastening the ends, and Tony can’t help but think of Afghanistan, of being helpless in the Mark I, waiting for the software to boot. What Yinsen… what Yinsen did…

“I’m gonna make this right, Steve. I don’t know what Hill was thinking,” he hears himself say, voice sounding half-hollow. “But I didn’t know about this.”

“I believe you, Tony.”

Well. Captain America—Steve—believes him. There’s a first time for everything.

And a last, he guesses.

Steve tugs on the cable, checking its security, and Tony starts to shuffle them towards the emergency manual cargo door release. “Ready to do your best Kate Winslet impression and ‘never let go’?”

“I’m making a face that looks like I have some idea what you’re talking about,” Steve narrates next to his head, sounding about as amused as someone who has no control over the life-or-death situation they’re about to enter can be.

Just as well he doesn’t get the reference, because name-checking someone who nearly freezes to death in icy water? _Yeah, that was stupid, Stark._ “Well, they’re not all winners. Here we go.”

He jams the door release and Steve’s arms wrap around his chest—well, the chest plate. That... particular action is not playing out like he fantasized it would. Not that he has. Frequently.

Just as the lights in the cargo hold flicker out entirely and the plane gives up the ghost, Tony leaps forward, taking them both into the unyielding grey.

The hand and boot thrusters are on full blast and they burst forward—what he hopes is forward; direction is a bit of challenge at the moment.

Immediately, they are surrounded by the silver flecks Tony glimpsed from the jet. He can’t hear Steve’s shout, even over the comms, but he feels him convulse slightly on his back and that’s worse.

His HUD displays are alight in red.

“Friday,” he asks, desperation creeping into his tone. Those silver flecks aren’t just tiny passengers in the storm, are they? They’re flying, in formation—

“My sensors are being disrupted, just as they were on the Quinjet, but if I had to guess I’d say we’re surrounded by—”

“—Nanobots,” Tony finishes.

They’re hurting Steve. _Shit._

Tony considers removing the suit and letting it envelope Steve, to try and stop any further damage the bots might be causing. But Steve is already compromised, and _one_ of them has to try to fly this rig, or they are both beyond hope.

The protective seal provided by Tony’s armor appears to have kept its integrity, so he’s safe—but if Friday’s external sensors are already borked by these things, what’s to say any of this information is accurate? What if they’re already inside and attacking him, too?

He hopes his own internal sensors—i.e. nervous system—not being on fire is an indication that they’re not; either way, no choice but to continue with the plan of trying to land them safely.

Steve’s squirming suddenly quiets, and his arms go slack around Tony’s body.

“Steve,” Tony hisses. “Friday, is Steve—?”

“Difficult to say for sure, but I think Captain Rogers is merely unconscious. I wish I could be of more assistance,” Friday laments.

“Just tell me which way is down,” Tony responds, voice steely.

They’re barreling through slate colored fog, punctuated by tiny glimmering enemies, for what feels like forever.

Finally, the opacity of the storms lifts slightly—there’s green below— oh shit, that’s the forest— the _ground_ —

The HUD is more error messages than accurate readings, but he estimates he’s got about five more seconds to impact; there is no time to slow down, no landing he can approximate that could be described as anything other than “crash.”

And this time there’s no convenient _deus ex Hulkina_ to catch him before going splat.

Pepper flashes through his brain momentarily, and his heart lurches. No. Not going there.

Oddly—or, maybe not oddly at all—Steve’s face is the next one that races through his mind.

As close as Steve’s body is, he’s just as out of reach as Pepper at the moment; plummeting toward the earth with no way to contact people he cares about is a shitty hobby, Tony decides.

_We kissed, at Clint’s farm. We were in the same bed. I said I was having a dream about Pepper, but I—_

No way to say it now. No way to make it right— make _anything_ right. Tony shuts his eyes.

Then he feels it—strong arms around him, gripping the chest plate tightly.

This is a hallucination. It has to be. (All things considered, it’s a pretty good one.)

He feels himself start to lose consciousness, and he doesn’t fight it. He imagines he hears a voice saying his name.

He thinks it sounds like Steve’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta'ed yet because I wanted to get at least one part posted right away.
> 
> It might amuse you to know I wrote most of this before the release of CA:Civil War; turns out some of it is extra canon-compliant!


	2. self.test()

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't even really know that much about Classic Dr. Doom to be honest, but he seemed right for the role, so... if you are a stickler, I'm going to apologize in advance.
> 
> Also, if you hate pseudo-science, you might not love this. But it's all for reasons of cuteness and flirting and fun. You've been warned.

Tony wakes up, and—

No. No ‘and.’ Full-stop. He’s _alive?_

Yeah, no. There’s no way that’s possible. Not that he’s not excited about the prospect, but he should be in a million tiny pieces right now.

But he’s breathing, he can wiggle his fingers and toes, and that is definitely pain he’s feeling in literally his _everything_. Jesus. Sure _seems_ like he’s alive.

He’s lying on his back, and everything in his view is black, even after he opens his eyes. Before he panics that he’s gone blind, he realizes everything feels heavy around him, like he’s encased— so, okay, suit’s intact, apparently? Another deeply implausible outcome.

“Friday?” he asks on a soft moan, throat dry.

No answer.

He tries moving his arm, to reach up to the trigger the exterior faceplate release, and finds that he can’t. He can barely move at all, in fact. Shit. So not only no AI, no _current_. Nothing’s powering the servos, and some of the joints seem to be jammed as well. He is effectively a freaked out sardine in a very heavy, expensive tin can.

How could he have lost emergency backup power? Those reserves shouldn’t be accessible, to anyone or _anything_. He’s tested the reactor against all sorts of extreme conditions— several hundred practical tests and millions of simulations— this shouldn’t be possible, his brain is screaming. _None_ of it should be, none of it makes sense—

He’s slipping into a mild hysteria when he registers a gentle pressure against the side of his head, and the faceplate pops open. Cool air hits his skin, and the world comes back, starting with Steve Rogers, who’s kneeling over him and looking deeply relieved to see Tony alive.

“Tony,” Steve breathes. He looks damn near angelic, his head framed by fading stars set in a blue-purple early morning sky. “Thank _god_.”

Tony echoes that sentiment. Steve’s alive. He’s _alive_. He doesn’t even look _hurt_. Christ, they are so goddamned lucky.

The overwhelming relief that floods him short circuits his brain a little, and he thinks, _How can I wake up to this view without nearly dying first?_ He chuckles. It hurts his ribs, and he follows it up with a groan. Fuck.

“What happened?” he asks Steve, whose face goes a bit slack in confusion.

“You mean you don’t know? I assumed you flew us down to safety. I passed out almost as soon as we left the jet—I got pelted by these little— _things—_ ”

“Nanobots. Nano _virus_ , in all probability. Did it hurt you?”

“At the time, yeah— I don’t know if I was just panicking, but I felt like they were… flying in my mouth, up my nose, trying to get under my skin…”

He runs a hand over his face, grimacing at the memory of it, but he must be reassured as he feels the same thing that Tony sees, which is his gorgeous, boyish face, completely unchanged and unharmed by the trauma he’s describing. _Thank fuck_.

“I’m fine now, though,” he confirms. “Serum must’ve fought it off.”

 _Handy thing, that serum_ , Tony reflects, a tad skeptical. If they were back in New York, he’d insist Steve have Dr. Cho give him a physical. But hard to argue that he seems anything less than fine now, and they’ve got other issues to work through.

Still, if Steve was out cold, battling tiny machines in his bloodstream, and Tony started to pass out mid flight, how the _hell_ did they get to the ground in one piece?

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, concerned. “Can you move?”

“Not very well,” Tony replies, face contorting as he tries to sit up one more time— he struggles and only gets as far as propping himself up on his elbows. “I mean— I’m not hurt. Not too badly, anyway. But no power at all to the suit.” Steve glances up and down the length of the suit, scoots a little closer to Tony. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Help prop me up?” Tony asks.

Steve bites his lower lip, gauging the task, then hooks his hands underneath each of Tony’s armpits, pulling his torso upright; Tony pushes against the ground as well, and finally he’s sitting.

Jesus, this is embarrassing. When people (i.e. him) dream about getting picked up by Captain America, he’s fairly (i.e. completely) sure this is not what comes to mind.

“Thanks,” Tony says, grateful but still wanting to crawl into a hole.

“I wish there was more I could do.”

Steve’s gaze drifts down the armor again, like he’s assessing it—is the damage that bad?— when his eyes land on the broken reactor. He tentatively puts out a hand toward it, and Tony feels a little ripple of terror for some reason. The arc reactor is his best creation, still part of him, in a way, even if not buried in his chest anymore. Steve staring at it so fixedly while it’s out of commission… it makes him feel naked. (And not fun-sexy-times naked, more dream-about-being-in-your-middle-school-cafeteria naked.)

“Yeah, it’s offline,” he tells Steve, an attempt at waving him off with words while unable to do so physically. Steve’s hand continues undeterred on its trajectory, though, and Tony swallows. “Not sure what happened but it’s totally—”

Steve’s fingers brush against the reactor’s surface, and it lights up.

“—dead,” Tony finishes. Movement restored to the suit all at once, he nearly falls backward. He reflexively puts his arms behind him, catching himself, and then realizes what he just did.

“What the—?” He looks down. The reactor is definitely back online and stable.

He looks back up. Steve is as surprised as he is.

“I swear, I didn’t do anything—” Steve stands up, gesturing placatingly, voice apologetic. Which is stupid. Because of course he didn’t, what _could_ he have done? Also, power restoration? Is a Very Good Thing.

Tony shifts around, gets to his feet as well. “—Steve, it’s fine, it’s _great—_ ”

Steve shakes his head and the concern on his face from a moment ago begins to melt away, like he’s decided something, squashed a rogue thought. He gestures at the reactor.

“Pretty resilient. Your tech is better than even _you_ thought it was, huh?” He smiles.

“Yeah, resilient,” Tony echoes absently, wheels spinning madly in his head. The list of impossible things that have just happened is growing. What is going on here? A second opinion would be helpful.

“Friday?” he asks for the AI again, then holds a finger up to Steve— _one sec_ —before flipping the faceplate back down.

Once more, there’s no voice response, and the monospaced text in the HUD’s console simply says: **WARNING: EMERGENCY POWER RESERVES AT 8%. DEFAULTING TO CORE MOTION PROTOCOLS ONLY.**

Well, it’s a status, at least. He pops the mask back up.

“Still on our own. No communication, no maps, no anything.”

“No flight?” Steve asks hopefully, a slight crinkle around his eyes like he probably already knows the answer to that. “Because, about that bridal-style thing—”

Tony snickers, shakes his head.

“If the repulsors are even functional, I don’t have enough power for lift off. I’m gonna go ahead and guess the jet didn’t miraculously survive like we did, huh?”

Steve blows out a long breath, pivots a quarter turn to indicate something behind him. “Good guess.”

Tony takes his first look around in the amethyst-tinted pre-dawn. They’re in a forest, but not one like Tony’s ever seen. The tree are impossibly tall, shooting up defiantly from the dearth of undergrowth, ancient foreboding spires. He has to tip his head back slightly to see the thin canopies of the ones nearest him. They’re a little like the California Redwoods Tony saw occasionally as a kid, but this species is deciduous—some kind of weird oak, possibly?—and the trunks are leaner, grayer; something about them feels sadder, or maybe angrier.

Behind Steve, there’s something of a clearing. A gigantic rotting log lies in the center of it, maybe one point five meters in diameter, covered in moss and lichen.

And near it, another type of carcass: you’d barely recognize the scattered pieces of metal as once belonging to a quinjet. Tony can only make out about a third of the entire plane, utterly destroyed; who knows how far away the rest is.

 _That could be us_ , the thought reverberates morbidly in Tony’s brain. _Based on chance and physics, that should be us. What happened?_

“Welcome to beautiful Latveria,” Steve sighs. “I assume, anyway. Hope you planned on staying awhile.”

Tony takes another glance around the area as he pops open a compartment in the armor’s torso, and crosses to Steve, handing him a protein bar and a packet of dried cranberries. “Did you get a good look at the map? Any idea how far we are from the nearest city?”

“From Doomstadt? Hard to say, the forest is pretty massive, and—”

Tony does a double take. “I’m sorry, _what-stadt_? Do I have a head injury after all?”

Steve bites into the dense fake-chocolate rectangle and shrugs. “Just telling you what the map said. Don’t tell me you skipped the homework,” he shakes his head. “You missed out. There’s also Doomvale, Doomton, Doomsdale… Actually, if we’re where I think we are, _this_ place is called—”

“—the Doomwood,” an accented voice informs them.

They spin around simultaneously to face the sound, and see… okay, who the hell should be blamed for _that_ outfit?

There’s a man ( _maybe a woman with a voice modifier?_ Tony tries to correct his bias. But no, as mildly sexist as the implications might be, no woman would ever wear _that_ ) in a silver-grey suit of armor. It’s wildly different from the Iron Man suits. It’s heavier, looks clunkier at first glance. There’s definitely medieval influence. But there’s something earthy, something simplistic and almost common about it, too. Rather than the intricate designs frequently used in that era, it’s decorated with almost certainly not-structurally-necessary rivets, giving it a brutal look.

His face is covered in a matching mask; the mouth area has an immoveable trapezoid welded on, forming a fixed sneer, and the eye slits are similarly squared off. Bright blue eyes and scarred skin peer out from underneath.

And sure, that’s all… interesting, but the thing that really makes the ensemble is the bright forest green tunic, hood, and cape, the last of which is fastened in place by giant golden discs at his collarbones, not dissimilar to the circular details from Thor’s armor.

Altogether, it looks like someone didn’t know whether to go to the Robin Hood movie premiere, the Steampunk convention, or the Knights of the Round Table Enthusiasts’ Meeting, and decided to dress for all three. Like history barfed on a mannequin, pretty much.

 _But_ , Tony’s tactical mind cuts through the snark, _this guy just snuck up on you and the greatest soldier of all time, so… deal with that._

Cap shoves the protein bar in his pocket instead of dropping it ( _oh my god you are SUCH a child of the Depression, we have to stop being in danger so I can tell you how adorable you are_ ) and shifts into a defensive stance.

Likewise, Tony brings up his arms and flexes his palms. Sure, he and Steve know he’s utterly fucked, only having extremely minimal repulsor power, but depending on how long he’s been creeping around and listening in, The Knight Who Says Ni might not.

Said wacky Arthur wanna-be is perfectly still, except for the oh-so-dramatic ruffling of his cape in a light breeze. He appears to be unarmed, but Tony knows better than to trust a first impression. He speaks again and they can hear him clearly despite his lack of a visible mouth; probably a similar system to Tony’s suit speakers. Definitely more to this guy than meets the eye.

“I am Victor Von—”

“ _Wolfenstein_ ,” cuts him off Tony eagerly, unable to help himself. “Say ‘Wolfenstein.’ That is the _only_ acceptable punchline in this scenario.”

“—Doom,” the armored man concludes.

“Well, my day is ruined now,” Tony grumbles.

“As leader of Latveria, I inform you that you are trespassing on Doom’s sovereign territory. This mission of yours is unauthorized, and I _want_ my tech back.”

“ _Your_ tech?” Steve asks. “The nanobots were yours? I think we know who took Draupnir,” he directs the last comment at Tony.

“And who tried to kill us today. I am billing you for that quinjet. Those things are not Prime Eligible, you know.”

“The damage of your property during your interference in government science trials is no concern of mine,” Doom continues, unphased. “But your theft of the nano-enhancer technology, _that_ will be dealt with. This is Doom’s final warning.”

“Theft?” Tony asks, completely puzzled. First off, that stuff is probably half Tony’s work to begin with, and secondly, he hasn’t seen _any_ nanobots since he and Steve woke up. He expected more glittery looking things on the forest floor after the sheer number of them he saw in the storm, but he hadn’t exactly been worried about it. They appear to be gone, but why would Doom think that he and Steve took them? “We don’t have your—”

“If you don’t return them, I will _take_ them from you…”

“Tony…”

He hears Steve’s voice creep half an octave up mid-name in alarm, and at the edges of the clearing, about twenty other figures are uncloaking. Or more accurately, returning to visibility. Because they are all exact replicas of Doom, which means they are _all_ wearing fucking cloaks. Of course they are.

“...By any means necessary,” Doom’s voice echoes around them, emanating from all the figures at once.

“Doom...bots?” Steve guesses at the name.

Tony sighs wearily. “Doombots,” he says, like it pains him, before pushing the faceplate back down into place.

The Dooms rush to the center of the clearing, descending on him and Steve, and, yeah, this really sucks.

What the Doombots lack compared to the Ultronbots’ flexibility and speed, they make up for in raw power. These things are _strong_. One or two at a time is a struggle for Tony in the suit. Tony guesses six or seven would give even the Hulk some trouble.

So, movement is their best strategy— keep them on their artificial toes, keep them separated. With Tony currently sans flight, Steve is having a better time with this plan, fighting them while simultaneously moving across the clearing.

Or it seems that way, until Tony pops back up after judo throwing a bot to its back, and he sees Steve being taken down by two more Dooms. The super soldier is hidden from Tony’s line of sight behind the giant downed tree.

Before Tony can make a move to him, even call to him, he watches as the Dooms are tossed unceremoniously out from behind the log, arcing up in the air, viridescent capes flapping all the way down as they slam into ground. This is followed immediately by Steve leaping atop the log, now with his shield, recovered from the plane debris, firmly in hand. His nostrils flare as he breathes hard a handful of times before jumping down and back into the fray.

In the second before another metal fist collides with his head, Tony has just enough time to think, _Um. That was stupid hot_.

The fighting continues; Tony slows about three of them down while not dipping below 6% power reserves—who says he can’t show restraint sometimes?—and Steve has incapacitated another four, when one of the remaining bots stops, going eerily still.

“Scans complete,” it says in Doom’s voice. “Nano-enhancers detected. Protocol update: capture the infected. Destroy the uninfected.”

Which is the moment Tony comprehends that the nanotech _did_ go someplace specific, not just ‘away.’

 _Into his suit._ Of course. It has to be. Maybe they’re the reason he and Steve are alive—the nanotech was smart enough to do an override on the suit’s AI, and later rebooted the reactor. If that’s the case, it’s incredible. It’s—well, if they weren’t facing almost certain death for about the millionth-and-a-half time today, Tony would be overjoyed.

Unfortunately, the next moment is the one he realizes the Doombots were just fucking around with them before. And now that they know exactly where the tech is, they’re so very, very done.

Four Dooms rush in around him, grabbing his arms and legs faster than he thought possible, immobilizing him. Across the clearing, a handful more do the same to Steve, ripping his shield away from him, while he struggles against them with everything he’s got.

Tony senses the approach of a fifth Doombot behind him. It trips the helmet release and rips it from Tony’s head, which Tony expected, but it doesn’t continue taking the suit off of him. It just wraps a cold arm around his throat and begins to crush his windpipe.

Who cares what happens to the sardine when all you need is the can, apparently.

A fuzzy blackness starts to encroach the sides of his vision. He tips his head down as much as he can, straining against the metal arm to try to look for Steve. When he sees Steve’s horrified face, he almost wishes he hadn’t.

“TONY!” Steve screams, voice raw and full of terror. “TONY! _NO!_ ”

It’s hard for Tony to see for sure, as he’s red-faced and going starry-eyed already, but on that last guttural shout, it looks like Steve’s almost… _possessed_. A dark, tenacious, absolutely _furious_ expression falls over his features, shading his face in a way Tony’s never seen before.

Steve stops struggling, and methodically places his hands on the faces of the two Doombots nearest him. Steve’s mouth twists into a snarl, and all four Doombots holding him drop to the ground.

Unrestrained, Steve takes a half step forward and throws an arm out; at first, it’s unclear if he’s reaching for Tony, or threatening the bots.

But his intention becomes pretty apparent when a burst of energy pulses out from his hand— _from his fucking hand!_ —a powerful electric half-sphere oscillating through the air. It strikes the Doombots holding Tony, as well as all others in the clearing, and they, too, go down in an instant, limp and lifeless.

Unfortunately, the EMP—because really, let’s call it what it is—takes out Tony’s armor power as well, but Tony can’t really bring himself to care, even as he flops to the ground, because he’s too busy 1) clutching his neck and gasping for air, and 2) thinking _Holy Fucking Shit_.

Footsteps rapidly pound across the undergrowth, and once more, Steve’s kneeling over him.

“Hey, Tony, I got you. I got you, Tony,” Steve chants reassuringly as air rushes back into Tony’s lungs.

Steve’s voice sounds just way it did when they were falling. When Steve _saved_ them. Because that’s exactly what happened.

Tony’s train of thought is impeded when he hears Doom—the original Doom, the one that first introduced himself—intone pissily, “This is not the last you’ve heard of—”

Tony tries to twist his head in their tormentor’s direction, but it’s barely in his field of vision.

Steve calmly raises his right arm in Doom’s direction, fingers splayed, all the while never taking his eyes from Tony’s face. Then, sharply, he makes a fist, a simple gesture full of violence, and there’s a _zap_ noise.

It’s hard to make out from this angle, lying on the ground, but Tony thinks he sees Doom’s _head_ fly off and land on the ground, wires sticking out of the base of the skull. Huh. So there wasn’t a “real” Doom at all. Not here, anyway. That one was a robot, too.

Apart from their heavy breathing, the clearing is quiet.

The reality of the situation descends on Tony.

Victor von Doom isn’t just some half-cracked, badly-dressed despot.

...Er, well, maybe he is. But he wasn’t _wrong_ , in point of fact.

They _did_ take his tech, his nano-enhancers: a weird amalgamation of Asgardian magic and Tony’s scavenged componentry.

 _Steve_ did, whether he had wanted to or not. The serum didn’t fight them off: it _adapted_ them. And they adapted to _it_.

 _Welp, Odin must’ve liked it_ , Tony’s oxygen-starved, pop-culture overloaded brain delivers, as he stares up into the deep of Steve’s wide blue eyes, _‘cause apparently he put a ring on it_.

* * *

Steve’s not stupid. He knows what’s happened.

Okay, not _exactly_ what, not in a scientific way. Changes to his biology, things like that.

But he knows.

Just as he was coming to in the forest earlier, while Tony was still unconscious, he remembered a… a dream—that doesn’t seem quite the right word, but what else would you call it?— that he had:

He’d taken over Tony’s armor, somehow, and flew it for him.

That was pretty easy to dismiss as impossible on waking, though. His was brain blocking out the trauma of falling out of a plane. How could it be anything else?

Then a few minutes later, he touched the arc reactor, and it… spoke to him.

Not with words, nothing so distinct. But it had a presence, and it came back to life under his hand, and Steve was certain, for passing fraction of a second, that the dream wasn’t a dream at all.

And then Doom was about to kill Tony, and that was… well, even a non-genius could track what kind of a reaction _that_ caused.

Now, encircled by defeated Doombots, kneeling over Tony for the second time in thirty minutes, it’s hard to deny the truth.

 _Infected_ , the bots said, and he knew. He _knew_.

He came out of that storm _wrong_.

They’re temporarily out of danger— _Tony’s safe now, you’re both okay_ —and a new pervading thought consumes Steve’s consciousness: they have to get back.

Dr. Cho can fix this. She built the Vision’s body, she’s seen things like this before, probably, she can just scan him and figure out… figure out… _something_. Right?

They _have_ to get back.

Steve finally realizes Tony’s mouth is moving, but he didn’t catch a word of what was being said; his heavy breath and frantic heartbeat are deafening in his own ears.

_Focus, Rogers. Assess the situation and create a plan._

“What?” he asks, coming back to the present, quieting his rising panic.

“I said, that explains a lot, actually,” Tony repeats, his voice a rasp, still staring up at Steve.

“C’mon,” Steve reaches down and touches one of the armor’s pauldrons, and sees Tony’s reddened eyes track the motion with curiosity, and maybe a little apprehension. But nothing happens when his hand lands on the shoulder piece. Steve shakes it gently. “We’ve gotta go. You can’t move the armor again? No power?”

“I think you’d know, Sparky,” Tony responds, eyes leaping back to Steve’s face. He looks expectant.

Steve turns away to look at full-length of the armor, ignoring the questioning expression (and the stupid nickname.)

Okay, Tony can’t move in the suit. 

“Gotta get it off, then.” Sensible next step. Not as impervious to attack, but it’s better than being stuck in one place. Steve searches the complicated array of overlapping plates; he knows there’s a manual release on these things, he’s seen Tony use it before...

“Or,” Tony offers, “You could give me a battery top-up. Diagnostic scan for damage, if you can do that sort of thing—"

“—Where’s the manual release? Stop kidding around—“ Steve asks over Tony’s extremely unsubtle implications. He lets his hands rove over the armor’s torso—which is admittedly awkward in a totally different way—but he’s hoping he'll feel a catch, a switch, anything, so he can open the damn thing up.

"Steve, _talk_ to me, can you just—”

Steve’s fingers catch on a piece jutting out of the side of the chest plate, maybe that’s it—

“There could be more of those robots around, we have to get _going_.” He grabs the piece and yanks.

It comes off in his hand with a _snap_ , and the suit does nothing in response.

“Sorry,” Steve mumbles.

Tony stops talking, purses his lips.

“Fine,” Tony says after a beat. “There’s an emergency release in the hip joint, but you’ll have to be careful not to set off the flares, I’ll describe the process to you—”

 _The hip, of course_ , Steve thinks, the suggestion triggering a memory. Without another word, his hands go to the circular extrusions on either side of Tony’s… er, _body_ , his brain finishes that sentence carefully. He start to twist, slide, and click the pieces in a pattern, almost like a locker combination, desperate to get Tony out as quickly as possible.

Of course, the fact that he’d begun doing it without even waiting for Tony’s instruction means either he’s paid a _lot_ of attention to Iron Man in the past three years and remembers how the armor works better than he thought, or he’s able to innately understand the mechanism because of, uh, The _Other_ Thing, to borrow a Bruce-ism.

Or both.

Steve isn’t sure which of those possibilities is the one making his ears go red, so he just finishes up the unlock procedure as fast as he can.

The second he hears the metal plates begin to unlatch and separate, he stands up to attention, scanning the area for threats and pointedly not looking at Tony.

“Uh, good work, soldier,” he hears Tony husk out. (His voice just sounds like that because his larynx was being crushed five minutes ago, Steve reasons.)

“Are you hurt?” Steve asks shortly.

Tony sits up and coughs, clears his throat. “I’m fine.” Which is not really an answer to what Steve asked, not entirely, but now is not the time to quibble over phrasing. Tony would tell him if something was really wrong. Probably.

Steve nods, and then and pivots away, not sticking around to watch Tony to remove himself from the armor.

He crosses the clearing to retrieve his shield, then goes to dig through the remains of the jet wreck to find supplies, rations, anything useful.

He hears Tony approach several minutes later, and turns to see him, once again clad simply in a workout shirt and black pants, small and unassuming in his stature, compared to Iron Man, at least. But he carries himself so confidently, even as vulnerable as he is at the moment. Tony has always been pretty adamant about not being a soldier, and technically that’s true enough, but he knows his way around a battle. In addition to feeling a fondness for him, Steve is glad for his presence as an ally, as well.

Their eyes meet, and Tony’s look is softer now; the only question in his eyes seems to be, _are you ready to talk about this?_

The sun has risen, and Steve can clearly see that Tony has a bruised cheek and a split lip, and the red around his neck is rapidly welting into purple, even near-black in places.

Steve flashes back to the Doombots squeezing Tony’s neck—a foreign sentience in the back of his mind starts to wake in defense at the memory— _no_ , he tries to tell it. He lets his eyes fall shut, attempting to quell it, breathes in deeply through his nose.

He opens his eyes again and returns Tony’s stare, hoping the expression on his face is answer enough. Tony looks at the ground, gives a thoughtful half-nod, and returns to sifting through the quinjet rubble.

Tony apparently, very occasionally, knows how to pick a battle, too.

They work for a while in silence. Steve gathers some food packets, rope, and part of an emergency kit, including a flare gun. Better to have than not, certainly, but right now it’d only draw unwanted attention to their location. Tony adds some tech scraps to the pile; seems like nothing’s in functional condition right now, but hopefully Tony can hack them a communication device when they find shelter.

They bundle up their new supplies with some tarp remnants. Tony seals the armor back up, and affixes some rope under its lifeless arms, readying it to be pulled behind him like sled.

“Do you need—?” starts Steve, but Tony indicates ‘no.’

“Done this before,” he says simply, and Steve doesn’t pry. “Ready?”

Steve bobs his head. “Let’s go.”

They march through the forest in silence, in the direction Steve hopes Doomstadt is. Given the name, it’s probably not friendly territory, but it’s got to be better than their current situation. Nothing in the woods is of any use at all to signal back to the rest of the team— with Friday’s abilities so thoroughly distorted and destroyed before the crash, Steve doesn’t even know if anyone back home realizes what’s happened yet— and the thin, sparse nature of the trees makes them susceptible to overhead surveillance.

But ultimately, after a couple hours of tramping through the brush, the landscape is largely the same: another clearing, this one with a little stream, but no sign of cover or civilization.

Metal stops clanking behind him, and Tony’s footsteps go silent. Steve turns.

Tony has released his grip on the armor sled, letting his arms fall to his sides.

“What are we doing, Steve?” he asks, sounding weary.

“If you need me to pull the armor—”

“Answer the damn question.”

“Looking for shelter—a cabin, a cave—”

“Yeah, caves are _terrible,_ and we’re not going to find any here, anyway—”

Steve stands his ground, continues explaining, “—or a town, somewhere we can contact someone, find a radio. Or tools to fix the armor, anything at all—”

“ _Bullshit_. You’re _running_. Steve.” Tony covers his mouth with his fist in frustration, then lets it drop. “Look. I’m really, _really_ trying to not be a dick about everything, and let you make peace with this in your own time. But we are _stranded_. An extremely angry Skyrim cosplayer has already made it _very_ clear he wants to kill me and tear your insides out. We are not going to magically find ‘tools’ I can use to repair the armor, and in the meantime, you are not even acknowledging that you have a _very big tool_ —”

Tony puts a hand up, pausing himself.

“—bad phrasing, trying again: you have an extremely powerful new ability that could help get us out of here. And as I recall, you are big on sharing with rest of the class.”

“This is completely different,” Steve says stonily, defiant.

“And again, I say, bullshit. You don’t want to deal. A normal reaction. I can sympathize, truly. But I _know_ you realize that this isn’t just about you. I like being alive, and I think I speak for the rest of the world when I say I like your insides exactly where they are, so—”

Steve feels his knuckles crack as he squeezes his hands into fists. He squares his jaw. “If it weren’t for your tech in the first place—”

Tony leans back in an arch, head tilted up, groaning. “Oh, god, it’s Blame-Tony-o’clock already?! Where does the time _go_.”

He exhales forcefully, and shakes his hands in front of him, gesturing emphatically as he continues, voice raised. “That is deeply, intensely _not_ helpful, and I cannot _believe_ I have to be the role model here. Come. _ON_ , Rogers. What did you do after the serum worked? Tucked in and knit a tea cozy?”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Steve shouts back, equally exasperated, guts churning, blood rushing to his face. “I don’t even know what it _is_!”

Tony stills and lets a very small smile appear at one corner of his mouth.

“Sure, but that’s half the fun,” he says, softly, in a way Steve thinks is meant to be encouraging.

Which just enrages Steve further.

“It’s not _fun_ ,” Steve yells at him. “Nothing about this is remotely— maybe it would be for _you_ , okay? But… this isn’t _me_.”

He sighs, covers his face with his hands. He did _not_ want to get into this.

He hasn’t talked about his feelings with anyone.

He’s suspected, in the recent past, that Natasha knows what’s on his mind a little, because, despite her protestations to the contrary, Natasha knows everything.

But he’d never opened up to anyone on the team about how lost he felt already, and Tony’s not the most open sort of person to begin with, and—

He just wanted lunch with a friend and a goddamn drawing tablet.

He scrubs his hands through his hair, then drops his arms down, as if to show the defenselessness he feels. _No way out but through, huh?_

“I already don’t know who I… who I am. When I’m not Captain America. I don’t understand this century, and how I fit into it. Yes, being an Avenger helps, but you can’t do it twenty-four-seven.”

 _I wish I could_ , he thinks, pausing to catch his breath. Because playing the role is easier than being the man. Trying to have a life. Specifically, this new life, in this new world.

And even if he thought for a moment he could be a twenty-first century guy, accept the circumstances, live in the now... that hope died the day the Winter Soldier’s mask fell away and he saw Bucky. _Bucky_ , of all people. There was not a single more compelling symbol of his own history, yanking him back in his own memories, back in time.

He was already hopelessly torn between past and present before the storm. The _last_ thing he needed was a disease that turned him into… a... a Synthetic Man, of sorts, pulling him further into the future.

Steve comes back to himself, regards Tony, who just waits for him to continue.

“And— okay, my own… personal issues aside, I am the absolute _worst_ person to have these kinds of— I don’t even understand modern technology.”

“No,” insists Tony fiercely. “Uh-uh, don’t give me that. That’s everyone _else’s_ idea of you. You’re whip-smart, Steve.”

Steve shakes his head, eyes closed. He doesn’t need Tony to be patronizing, doesn’t need his damn pity.

“ _Stop_. Just stop, all right? Please. I hear you, Tony. I’ll do what I have to, I’m not selfish, but… maybe we can just look a little more? Find a, a radio, and contact the team and go home. We’ll see if Doctor Cho can fix me when we get back; I’m not going to… This… this isn’t _me_ , Tony. I’m sorry, but… you wouldn’t understand.”

Tony sighs, and his shoulders drop, head dipping down.

“You wake up.”

“What?”

“You wake up, and it’s… painful. So much pain, everywhere, that it takes you a second to realize something isn’t right. You don’t know where you are, but you feel there’s something… _off_ about your body.

“There’s...a _thing_ … inside you. That’s not supposed to be. And it’s cold, and it’s mechanical, and it’s foreign, and goddammit, it’s not supposed to be there, humans aren’t supposed to be fucking _hooked up to car batteries_ to stay alive. It isn’t you. It isn’t.”

 _Oh,_ thinks Steve. _Oh._

“That’s what you tell yourself, over and over, like maybe it’ll come true if you just keep thinking it enough. It’s not you. This thing, it’s inside you, without your permission, and you’re going to ditch it as soon as humanly possible, because it’s not you, and it’s not fair.

“And maybe it isn’t fair. Maybe it is. Fair is relative. But slowly, gradually, you realize: fair doesn’t matter, because it’s not going away. It’s in you now, it’s a part of you, and you are going to have to live with it.”

Tony starts to pace around the clearing, remembering as he walks.

“That’s the first realization, and that one’s… okay. Because you know a thing or two about _living_ with things. Things that are less than stellar. You bounce back, you tamp it down, you move the fuck on: whatever. That’s normal. You can deal with that. So you think: _this is who you are now_. Okay.

“The second realization, that’s the one that’s a real bitch. Because that’s one where you realize who you _could_ be. Who this thing—this cold, scary, uncomfortable, un-asked for thing—could make you be. Could _help_ you be. It’s when you realize what you can do, what you can achieve, because of it.

“And that’s utterly terrifying, because to do that, you have to be… _better_. You have to work at it., every day. And better’s hard.”

Tony looks up from pacing, and regards Steve, as if seeing him anew, and laughs softly. He switches directions, and walks toward Steve.

“Well, it’s hard for _me_ , anyway. Look, I’m not— well, I guess I _am_ , actually, giving Captain America a lecture, but I’m not... I’m just saying, I’ve _been_ where you are. Hell, _you’ve_ been where you are, I know that. Still, I bet most of the time Rebirth felt more like a gift and less like a wound, or a… a disease. More like something given, not changed against your will, not taken away.”

Tony’s closing in on him, and he keeps talking. Every now and then, he’ll look up, and he looks Steve right in the eyes. Steve feels his heart rate shoot up, feels exposed, but doesn’t— _can’t_ — look away.

“But gifts and chances are strange things, you don’t always recognize them at first, and I… I know I really, really don’t have to tell you about… great... y’know… _power…_ and being... greatly… uh, obligated to take care of stuff with it? I don’t know, I’m shit with the, the speeches and the concise, quotable nuggets of wisdom compared to you. And I really don’t have a leg to stand on, telling you to be ‘better’ than you are— I just…”

He sighs again, this time with something like finality. He’s standing in front of Steve. _Right_ in front of him. A few more inches and they’d be touching. They’re closer than when they faced off during their first argument on the helicarrier. Steve’s really only been this close to Tony one other time, and that… is not a great thing to remember right now.

“All I’m really trying to say is: I know what it’s like to wake up... _new_ , too, and you shouldn’t sell yourself short.”

He rests a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve tries not to flinch. He doesn’t know what to say, just nods, taking it all in, wondering if Tony’s ever said any of that to another person before.

“You can do this,” Tony tells him, and Steve’s glad he sounds so certain, because Steve doesn’t even really know what ‘this’ means, what action Tony is talking about.

“I’ve got your back, Cap. I’m one hundred percent on your team. And I’m not sure if you know this, but I’m fairly decent with electronics,” he smiles, still holding Steve’s shoulder, squeezing it gently.

No teammates looking to him for orders, no cameras filming them for the twenty-four hours news cycle, Steve admits it before he thinks better of it:

“I’m scared,” he tells Tony. “What if I can’t control it? What if I knock out power for all of Europe? What if I—”

“Then ‘we’ll do that, together, too.’” Tony quotes to him, no hint of snark in his tone. “Okay?”

Steve takes a moment. He’s going to do this. Even if only temporarily, he’s going to have to acknowledge that this… _thing…_ is part of him, and use it. Embrace it.

Meeting Thor, Wanda and Vision, has been a life-altering experience on its own. Being around individuals with such raw, intangible power... it’s intense and a little scary. Steve had been secretly harboring a feeling recently that it was for the best that his gifts were limited to punching, jumping and wearing really loud costumes.

This is... something else. Another level of ability. It’s going to change him. He hopes he’s strong enough to handle it.

But Tony’s face is so… open right now. He’s looking at Steve like he’s special. Like he thinks there’s no one better for the task. Like he _likes_ Steve, and trusts him.

 _He_ isn’t going to do this, Steve tells himself. _They_ are.

“Okay,” says Steve at last, nodding more for himself than for Tony’s sake. “Yeah, okay. We’ll try it.”

“Great!” Tony claps his hand jauntily twice on Steve’s shoulder before turning away, breaking the tension, and taking a few steps away.

Steve exhales a long breath he wasn’t totally aware he’d been holding.

“And hey,” Tony spins back, recalling something, “You don’t need a doctor to ‘fix’ you, either. Speaking as someone who’s had some work done recently,” he taps his chest. Oh, yeah, Tony had the reactor removed, didn’t he? “Trust me, I’m not even sure that’s _possible_.”

Steve is happy to talk about anything at _all_ besides himself for a few seconds.“Tony, you didn’t need fixing either—”

“Yeah, well, some would disagree.” Tony huffs bitterly, and Steve isn’t sure if ‘some’ is Pepper, or himself, or both. “But hey, joke’s on me, because it looks like wanting to be an Avenger is a permanent condition, too.”

Tony waves his hands dismissively, as if physically pushing that topic away, and Steve thinks this is a demonstration of that bouncing back, that tamping down Tony mentioned earlier.

 _You shouldn’t stop wanting to be a hero, Tony_ , Steve thinks. _I’d never expect you to, if you were—_

Oh, boy. Maybe Steve could do with some tamping down of his own.

“Anyway, my stuff,” Tony continues, “Forget it. More importantly: _your_ stuff, and how it can help us get the hell out of here.”

Tony claps his hands together, sound echoing off the trees in their vicinity. His face breaks out in a grin, and he very purposefully tents his fingers like some supervillain. In the moment, the devil himself could not have been more gleeful (or, _dammit_ , attractive.) “Let’s talk specs,” he says archly.

“Okay.” Steve concedes. “Sure.” He pauses. Thinks. What is there even to say? He doesn’t have the knowledge for this. Hell, he doesn’t even speak the _language_. He’s _terrible_ at this.

He watches Tony watch him flail. “Stop second-guessing yourself and spit it out,” Tony orders. “Anything. _Go_.”

“It… uh, feels, weird. Alive? Kind of?”

Tony tilts his head, snaps his fingers, makes a sort of circular, winding motion with his hands, as if trying to draw something out of Steve. “‘Kay, possible shared sentience, AI type abilities, maybe. I can work with that.”

He continues: “I don’t wanna assume, but you seemed kinda… emotional back there with the Doombots. Do you think you could try to control it? Or is it _only_ emotionally-based? Widow’s Bite on steroids, or is it more _Hulk 2: Electric Boogaloo_?”

He hadn’t thought about it yet. _In for a penny…_ Steve shrugs.

“I can _try_ to control it. What should I do?”

“Shock me.”

And that is ground Steve can stand on. C’mon, not even Captain America can let a line like that lie. “I don’t know what I could say that would shock _you_ , Tony”

That earns him a fond roll of Tony’s eyes. “Ha. Ha. Brilliant. No, seriously,” Tony crosses to him briskly, grabs Steve’s free hand, and places it on his _chest_. “C’mon, give me a zap.”

“Uh,” Steve tries not to be distracted by the warmth of Tony’s body under his hand, “Didn’t you say, when you were working with the first Iron Man suit, you’d sometimes send too much power to the controls?”

“What, you don’t want to send 80,000 volts to my body on accident? Okay, point taken.” Tony breaks away from him and paces around yet again— _is he always this antsy when he’s solving a problem?_ —then spies some deadwood on the ground, a branch, and retrieves it.

“So: I’m not a scout, you claim to have never been a scout: let’s see if you can make a fire.”

“We don’t need a fire, Tony, it’s the middle of the afternoon. It’ll only draw attention to—”

“You were _totally_ a scout, I don’t care what you say, but— fine, fine, we’ll put it out after. Right now, I need to see if you can push a current to something on command, so,” he holds the branch out to Steve. “Light it up.”

Steve sets his shield on the ground, a few paces away, and takes the stick in both hands, and takes a deep breath. Tries to remember what it was like, taking out the bots. That was so... instinctual. He’s a bad liar, and by extension, not a great actor; it’s hard for him to pretend that the stick is going to somehow _hurt_ them.

Maybe there’s another way about it. He closes his eyes. He tries to coax this new part of himself to life, pull it out from where it’s sleeping. _Hey, sorry I ignored you before_ , he thinks. It feels silly, knowing it’s really himself he talking to, but he knows nothing about this. He’s not a programmer, not an electrician. He’s not sure how else to approach it, so maybe he’ll just… ask really nicely?

_I need your help._

A tingle shoots up his spine, and spiders out to his limbs. There it is. Contact.

Okay, that’s step one. He grips the stick harder in his palms, eyes still shut tight. Now, step two.

 _Go to the stick_ , he tells himself, imagining what a current must be like.

He needs a circuit. Isn’t that it? Something coming full circle? He leans into the idea of what it feels like to throw the shield: the energy transfer, seeing where it will bounce before it happens, and then ricocheting back to his hands. _Go to the stick, go to the stick_ …

It’s not easy. There’s definitely resistance— that’s an electrical term, right?—but after a moment, something gives way inside him, and it all starts to flow.

He’s focusing so hard, he almost doesn’t notice the burning smell.

He opens his eyes, and smoke is rising from the stick. That wasn’t so bad.

“Good! Good!” Tony encourages him, waving him closer to the stream. Steve follows.

“Now, turn up the voltage,” Tony orders him delightedly. “Torch that sucker.”

Steve keeps his eyes open, because if he’s going to do this, he’s going to have to be able to make it happen and see his surroundings at the same time. He squints at the branch, and forms his mouth into a line. And he just… _pushes_.

The resistance in the branch falls away, and it bursts dramatically into flame almost instantaneously. Steve drops it into the stream and recoils, staring in disbelief as it sizzles out and is carried away by the water.

Tony crows, punches the air. “Holy shit, that was… that was _hot_ , Human Torch.”

Steve smiles. That… wasn’t so bad. It actually felt pretty under control.

Maybe this could work. He’s not a genius, but he can conceptualize it differently than just technology, or abstract science. There’s a physical component to it, too. It’s a skill, and he can learn it.

And it’s not like he had a guide after Rebirth; that was all trial and error. Now, he has Tony.

“Beginner’s luck,” he tells Tony, smirking with a fake humbleness, and Tony laughs. “Let’s do something else. What’s next?”

“Okay, okay, so you can produce electricity, so theoretically you could polarize—” Tony grabs his shield off the ground and starts walking away.

“Hey—” Steve says, and it comes out more protective than he meant it.

“Relax, I’m not taking it far.” Tony drops the shield on the ground, about fifty feet away, and begins to head back to Steve.

“Call your shield to you,” he says, explaining.

“I don’t have the magnetic gauntlets,” Steve admits, hoping Tony isn’t offended that he didn’t always wear the upgraded gear. He likes to work on his catching ability, and—

“No, _you_ —” Tony points at him, “You are the magnet—a giant electro-magnet, hypothetically speaking. So pretend you’re Thor,” Tony strikes a pose, trying to puff himself up, make himself look bigger, and Steve laughs at his Asgardian impression, feeling better, lighter than he has in days.

“Hold your hand out and look all radiant and expectant, and call your shield to your hand like it’s Mulder—”

“Mjölnir—”

“Exactly, what I said.”

Steve revs the energy inside again. The feeling responds, more quickly than before. He’s getting the hang of this. As he focuses on the shield, he gives it a _tug_.

The shield easily comes flying, landing in Steve’s hands. He beams at Tony, holding it up. “That was—”

Suddenly, he’s struck in the back, by more metal; there’s so much of it and it’s so forceful, he goes flying forward, face planted in the dirt, shield underneath him. Are the Doombots back? _Goddammit—_

“Tony!” he shouts, but the only thing he hears is Tony cackling hysterically.

He reaches behind and paws at the object stuck to the back of his neck, knocking it away. It’s a gauntlet, from the Iron Man armor.

He looks back over a shoulder, and sees various bits of the suit latched onto to him in random configurations... including the helmet, faceplate planted squarely against his ass.

He pulled the entire _armor_ over to him accidentally.

By this time, Tony is joyously making a frame around the scene with his fingers, eyeing it like it's a piece of fine art. “I would _kill_ to have a working cell phone camera. Fourteen glorious megapixels,” he laments, imagining it, “Best wallpaper ever. _Best_.”

“ _Tony—_ ” Steve scowls.

“To be honest, my face has been in far worse places—”

“ _TONY—_ ”

But Tony pays him no mind, just continues cracking up.

Steve calms down enough to stop tensing the energy pull, and allows the magnetic field to drop. He sits up, pushes both armor and shield away, and gives Tony an absolutely murderous glare. Tony looks contrite for about two point four seconds… and then doubles over and starts laughing again, and Steve joins him this time.

Steve wasn’t sure what he expected from this day, this new ability, but it wasn’t this. He’s… _happy_ , actually. Of all the strange occurrences in this odd new future, this feel _right_ to him.

Tony crouches to the ground, and scooches near Steve, sitting cross-legged.

“In all seriousness,” Tony wipes tears from his eyes, “I had to inject microprocessors and repeaters beneath my dermis for _weeks_ to do that,” he rubs a hand along his forearm, indicating where that process took place. “You, on the other hand, are a true natural. I am so seethingly, painfully jealous of you. What does it… what does it _feel_ like?” he asks, sincerely, brown eyes luminous, all hope and curiosity.

“I’m not sure I can…” Steve isn’t being difficult, doesn’t want to shut Tony out, but it’s such a hard thing to describe.

Then an idea comes to him. He removes his left gauntlet and tactical glove.

“Do you still have those...things, what are they? Repeaters? In your arms?”

Tony nods, “They’re just little amplifiers of signal, essentially, for the suit to be able to track a location in 3D space. There’s a whole system: some magnets, a processor. It all has to be activated, and typically I have it off, but—”

Steve carefully takes Tony hand, pulls it toward him, and turns it palm up.

It’s a half-formed idea. He’s not sure he’ll actually be able to pull it off: it’ll be more complex than simply turning on a magnet or pushing current around. But Steve is on this path fully now. Besides, he’s used to working without a parachute—usually in a literal sense—so he’ll figure something out.

After sizing up Tony’s arm, he holds his own forearm parallel, a few inches above Tony’s. He lets energy coil through him, from elbow to fingertips.

He asks the signal targets under Tony’s skin to listen up, and he feels them switch on.

Steve raises his own arm, and just as he’d hoped, Tony’s goes with him, levitating upward.

Steve doesn’t know the science behind it, per se, but he’s sort of… reversing the signal flow. Little pulses of electricity indicating where and how Tony’s arm should move next.

The movement is a suggestion only, Tony could break the connection at any time if he stopped relaxing, overrode the pattern with his own thought.

But to Steve’s delight, he doesn’t. Tony’s jaw just hangs open slightly, as he lets Steve trail his arm around in front of them, making shapes in the air.

“I mean, I know you can’t feel exactly what _I_ feel, just from this, but I thought…” Steve trails off.

Tony says nothing at all, just smiles.

Of all the tricks Steve’s taught himself today, making Tony Stark speechless is possibly his favorite.

After a few quiet seconds of this, Steve drives a tiny bit more power to the connection between them, and Tony’s arm barrels up as Steve’s slams down. Their forearms come together with a loud slap.

Tony jumps instinctively, tugging away, just a little; Steve can feel it. _Tony doesn’t even like to be handed things_ , Steve abruptly remembers, and is horrified for a second that this is a bridge too far. Tony isn’t free with his interpersonal contact, not like Steve has been in the past with others. They’re teammates, but not brothers-in-arms, none of that easy physical affection between them. _He’s not Bucky_ , Steve reminds himself, and Steve has no right to assume… anything at all. And he certainly has no right to assign movement for Tony, even in a playful way.

Steve drops the signal connection immediately, but simultaneously clasps his fingers around the Tony’s bicep: not a hold, just meant to be a comfort.

“Hey, sorry, got carried away,” he apologizes, “It’s just me.”

A short stillness, and then Steve feels Tony’s fingers curl about his elbow.

“‘Just’,” Tony repeats back to him, soft, voice suddenly gone much lower than it should be, “As if anything about you could be prefixed with ‘just.’” Tony looks down at their gripped hands, laughs. “You always _could_ get under my skin, huh, Rogers?”

Steve’s mouth has all at once become a desert, and he tries to swallow without making a humiliatingly loud ‘gulp’ noise.

“Guess technically I’m under yours, too,” Tony indicates by way of head tilt. “That’s half my tech in there, you know,” he informs Steve, impish grin playing about his lips.

 _Uh,_ is as far as Steve gets in thinking of a response.

They are sitting in a European forest, alone, holding hands, about to be attacked by killer robots at any moment, and Tony Stark just told Steve his tech, something he _made_ , is _inside of Steve_ , and is now proceeding to look at Steve like he’s made of _cake_. Except, for Tony, computers are the equivalent of cake, and Steve is _actually made of computers now_.

He feels like a cartoon robot that’s just been presented a logical paradox and as a result, its head is exploding. He is ludicrously, thoroughly in over his head, and not in the way he thought he’d be.

Steve finally, reluctantly, breaks the moment, and physically releases Tony’s hand from his, because he might not be able to continue breathing otherwise. “We should probably…”

“...focus on getting back?” Tony completes his sentence, clears his throat. “Yeah. Well. That was… informative. Can you tell me anything else about it? Your suite of powers? Anything you might have missed before?”

Steve contemplates before answering.

“The other thing is less physical, less about powers, but… I feel this… _pulse_. This humming. Like something’s whispering to me, but I can’t quite make it out.”

Tony’s eyes narrow, and he angles his head a bit. “Huhn. I wonder…” He pulls a small notebook and pen out of his pocket, which seems... charmingly analogue for Tony, Steve thinks. But it's obviously coming in handy now.

“Taking notes?”

“I had something else in mind,” he promises Steve, writing away furiously. “Wanna try something?”

“Sure.”

“Not even gonna ask me what it is? Trust me?”

“Of course, Tony,” he says instantly, and finds he’s starting to mean it.

Tony makes a few more pen strokes, rereads his work, then hands the notebook to Steve, pages open.

It’s… writing. Neater than Steve assumed it would be, for some reason. Uppercase not-quite-words, quotes, and...oh, it’s computer code of some kind.

Steve waits, wonders if it’ll make sense to him in a moment.

It doesn’t.

He tries to read line-by-line.

“Shhh..?” Steve tries to pronounce aloud.

“No, SSH, actually—” Tony says the letters individually, an acronym for something. “But don’t read it out loud, you don’t have to understand on a surface level, just… look it over.”

It’s weird, this code stuff. There’s no clear indication of stop and start, like sentences. What are all those little dashes with letters supposed to do?

“I don’t know what any of this means—” Steve feels embarrassment sweep back over him, and he turns the notebook away, momentarily deflated. He can do the physical things, sure, but programming is beyond him.

”Steve, please? I’ve got this hunch,” Tony asks earnestly, gently pushing the paper back to him. “You’re incredible, you can do things that shouldn’t even— please, just go with me a little further on this. Just… look at it like a… a map. A battle-plan, or something. Don’t make sense of it, just take it in.”

Steve turns the page back to face him, and takes in the code as best he can: the shapes of the glyphs, the letter patterns, the curve of the text as Tony has written it. Lets himself get through the whole thing without judging or second-guessing himself.

And, _click_.

It feels like his whole world is turned inward for a moment, total implosion, his visuals of the forest entirely _gone_ , consciousness reduced to a single point of light floating in a black field. The light—the signal, he surmises—zips into space in front of him at an ungodly speed. It disappears from view, and he waits in darkness.

...And then there’s a connection: he can’t see it, but knows the light found its target, and now, the same way he tugged at the shield earlier, he feels the connection tugging back at _him_.

He lets his imagined self, his mind, follow it, and he’s accelerating across the planet in an instant. He feels his insides swirling, but that doesn’t make sense, because he doesn’t even have a body, he’s pure data, an idea only, a spark racing into the unknown—

Then he’s _there_ , just solidly… _present_ , somehow, though he’s not even sure where. If it even is a ‘where.’ But he feels like he’s not alone anymore. Like he’s about to get an answer, a response from someone.

And he does, and, oh, the response has an Irish lilt.

 _ **Hello, Captain Rogers** , _says Friday.

Directly in his _brain_.

 _ **Your default IP address reads as Brooklyn,** _ she continues calmly, _**but I suspect you’d have returned by now if that were the case. Are you still in Latveria? Is the Boss with you?**_

“Steve? Steve!” Tony is calling him, and it reverberates, like Tony is miles away.

Steve blinks. His vision returns, and he sees the forest again. Feels like the breath has been knocked out of him. But the connection is there still, humming, in the back of his mind, pushed down but still active.

Tony is staring at him, holding his breath, and looks like he might not even know that’s what he’s doing.

“Steve, you okay? Are you—? Did you—? Are we—?”

Steve exhales a few times, blinking.

It’s out of his mouth before he can choose his words more carefully, but he’s fairly certain Tony will get the idea.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still un-beta'ed, sorry. I can't stop writing and I'm having too much fun. But mention fixes, please. And if you'd like to beta upcoming bits, let me know. I just didn't want to bug anyone who is RBB'ing at the moment.


End file.
